rpietila Altcoin Observer

[Este Nuno]

Could anyone explain to me why there's too much fuss about anon coins and how would ordinary users benefit from this feature?
Say, someone wants to buy 2nd hand ps4 from someone. Why would he be so eager to use cryptos with anon feature and hide his transactions?

If you don't feel that privacy is important, I invite you to publish ALL of your UNEDITED credit card and bank statements, ever, on the Internet.

No?  Now consider someone who actually has wealth.  Suppose you have a billion dollars in spare change (after the last multinational corp you bought) and a daughter in elementary school.  Do you want every Corsican and Byelorussian ex patriate within 500km to be able to determine just how large a ransom to ask for, when they leave her left hand in your mailbox?

Suppose instead that you are a middle-level cadre running a department in a satellite city of Chongqing.  Making arrangements for entrepreneurs to build the New China has provided you with a substantial quantity of yuan that you need to move to Cambridge, for Harvard tuition, a boxster and a nice flat.  BoC is off the table.  Bitcoin leaves a trail similar to the heat trail a satellite sees when watching a nuclear submarine transit the pacific:  A big red arrow pointing directly to your location.

These are not merely "first world problems".

No one is asking you to use monero if it doesn't serve your interests.  But I do claim that it is a crucial protection from totalitarian control of your political and religious activism, and can be used to deny ANYONE who may wish to seize your wealth the information necessary to do so.  The tech to make this easy enough to use so that those who are motivated, but not technically exceptional, can do so, is not present.  But Monero puts it in reach.

We live in a world of increasing risks.  Transactional privacy enables you to manage many important risks in useful ways.  The captive coopted mass of circus-goers will not fret about this, as they butter the bread for their grilled government cheese sandwiches.  Those who have something which they consider their own, something to protect, will understand this.

Governments control the cheese consumers.  But those who control the governments have something to protect.

I really think Bitcoin is anonymous already. I know it's not 100% but if someone wants to mix Bitcoin can't they just send x to address A and withdraw x from address B when they need it? Then someone else who wants to remain anonymous sends y to address B and withdraws y from address A. Or some extension of this system.

That's not anonymous at all though. You're completely dependent on exchange x not revealing anything about your transactions.

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[fluffypony]

I really think Bitcoin is anonymous already. I know it's not 100% but if someone wants to mix Bitcoin can't they just send x to address A and withdraw x from address B when they need it? Then someone else who wants to remain anonymous sends y to address B and withdraws y from address A. Or some extension of this system.

Not even close. Even clever ways of "mixing" like CoinJoin or SharedCoin have been shown to be fundamentally broken.

[Triffin]

This post by gmaxwell was the one that convinced me of the need for anonymity  

Why would anon even be something you want if you want Bitcoin to be mass adopted?

wow. You're kidding right?  Can you suggest a _single_ widely adopted financial system in the history of the modern world which made everyone's transactions and 'balances' mandatorily public?

Imagine you collect a paycheck in Bitcoin— when you get a raise, do you want your landlord increasing your rent?  "I know you're good for it."

Imagine you resell a product you paid for in Bitcoin and hear from your customers "I know you paid less for it, I want a better price!" or from your suppliers "We want a bigger share, we know you're selling these items for top dollar.".

Do you want your competitors knowing what your sales figures are, what products you're selling, and to which customers you're selling them to?

Do you want your employer potentially questioning the causes you donate to?— or just the risk that they _might_ question them, forcing you to self censor your actions for fear of losing your job, "It's just not working out".

Should the barista at the coffee shop know your bitcoin-net-worth or your lack thereof? Or the mugger they pass the info off to know that you're the ideal person to kidnap? Should loan-sharks know when you're tight on funds and most likely to take a predatory loan or participate in some long shot investment gamble?

Should your in-laws know you're paying for contraception while they're clamoring for grandchildren, or what kind of porn you like?

Should people in your community know what you're paying for your child's education— funds you could be instead spending supporting the community garden?

Should bidders for a deal know what your prices were— undermining the inherent motivation to be honest in auctions which depends on keeping some information secret?

Good fences make good neighbors and financial transactions frequently reveal a bit about our most intimate secrets and values.  Being able to answer "it's none of your business" when it really isn't is what frees people from feeling they have to impose their values on everyone else and frees people from everyone else constantly imposing their values on them for all things.

Transparency is an essential tool in our social tool-belt too— but like all things it must be used in an intelligent and controlled manner. Sunlight can be a disinfectant but it can also cause skin-cancer.

In a world where massive power asymmetries exists having control over your private information is one of the few re-balancing forces which are theoretically available to everyone... and this applies in a multitude of business and personal contexts far more numerous than what I've listed here, sometimes in gross ways and sometimes subtle ways. In some sense a financial transaction underlies every interaction we make with another person— though sometimes the scarce assets exchanged don't include money— sometimes we trade with less formal systems like reputation, trust, future obligation, etc instead of or in addition to money... but such trades are always happening, and without some privacy in them we can have privacy in nothing. (Some people hope that Bitcoin, or Bitcoin inspired systems might help create formalized versions of some of these non-monetary value exchanges in the future too… hopefully not while also undermining their privacy.)

Used in a poor way (as some wallets have enshrined and some businesses seem to be promoting) Bitcoin is one of the least private transaction and value systems ever created. I'm hopeful for the human-welfare-enhancing possibilities that Bitcoin could create in the future, but if it goes a route that further erodes the privacy we have in our interpersonal interactions then it could instead fuel a terrible dystopia.

There are also some Bitcoin specific risks— In Bitcoin our goal is to build a system of exchange which minimizes the need for trust... but we still must trust miners to establish the ordering of transactions. As a result miners have a substantial power to censor, but privacy undermines that risk— so long as we have enough of it. Anything that creates an incentive to control mining— e.g. to achieve censorship goals— risks undermining the whole system, so we're all better off if the system is more private... even the non-existing hypothetical person that has no need for privacy.

So back to your question— I'd turn it around, if Bitcoin undermines people's privacy how could it possibly be adopted— are people that foolish? And if so, could free society survive the harm such an outcome would create?

Here's the thread ..
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=648656.0

Triff ..

[Este Nuno]

This post by gmaxwell ...

Wow. Such a good post. I hadn't seen it before either. Thanks for linking that. This one is definitely a classic and will be brought up again and again.

[AnonyMint]

Everything else can be simply banned, and you go to jail for even using it at all (assuming you can arrange for illegally modified hardware to run it).

There is a solution.  

Hint: the solution is holistic because some bans just won't scale, and note that ring signatures are not essential to crypto-currency.

Hint#2: requiring accurate bookkeeping scales because there is an existing framework for it in place in all countries, especially the G20. Banning crypto-currency entirely doesn't scale (at least not within the 2016 - 2020 critical timeframe). Such a ban infringes on many other things and would have domino cascade...

I explain above that I think they can't ban my idea for a solution.

There is another reason they probably won't attempt to ban my idea for a solution. That is because they can't trace exchanges of anonymous good & services, thus if they ban some technology which makes anonymous what they can otherwise normally trace (the non-anonymous, physical economy which they can tax), they will drive the crypto-currency economy much faster towards the Knowledge Age and kill the Industrial Age even faster thus imploding their tax base and power structure. They will have to move to 666 embedded tracking in the body, that is the only hope for the power vacuum of democracy to continue to be funded as the physical economy gives way to the virtual economy of Knowledge production.

Because we know taxes must go up egregiously over the next decade or two, to pay for the bankrupt socialism which has promised everything to everyone, especially those who are or will soon retire. So unless you are a fascist oligarchy corporation with a FATCA exemption (ding dong Europeans you are not exempted as you will eventually find out as your EU overloads in full cooperation with the Russian Oligarchy take control in the coming false flag war with Russia), then you have no choice but to move underground with crypto-currency. These elite bastards have painted themselves into a corner. We've got them by the throat if we implement.

It is analogous to how OPEC cartels were self-defeating because the more they raised the oil price, the more the world moved to newer, more efficient vehicles.

Try to explain to the police that you did not want to intrude on their privacy by giving them a receipt...

As for the tax people, they do not care where you got that money from, only that you did not pay taxes on it.

It makes no difference which alphabet soup agency or propaganda slogan (e.g. T for terrorism, HT for human trafficking) our fascist oligarchy overloads use, bottom line is they want to trace every thing fully so there is no leakage where you can find ways to avoid their coming taxation wealth confiscation, capital controls. The goal is only they remain standing and all your wealth ends up confiscated into the heaping pile of socialism failure which they control.

As George Bush said, "you are either with us, or against us". So either line up in your milking stall, or prepare to be destroyed. As one Treasury official said, "we will burn the fingers of goldbugs up to their armpits".

[Vanderi]

Everything else can be simply banned, and you go to jail for even using it at all (assuming you can arrange for illegally modified hardware to run it).

There is a solution. 

Hint: the solution is holistic because some bans just won't scale, and note that ring signatures are not essential to crypto-currency.

Hint#2: requiring accurate bookkeeping scales because there is an existing framework for it in place in all countries, especially the G20. Banning crypto-currency entirely doesn't scale (at least not within the 2016 - 2020 critical timeframe). Such a ban infringes on many other things and would have domino cascade...

I explain above that I think they can't ban my idea for a solution.

There is another reason they probably won't attempt to ban my idea for a solution. That is because they can't trace exchanges of anonymous good & services, thus if they ban some technology which makes anonymous what they can otherwise normally trace (the non-anonymous, physical economy which they can tax), they will drive the crypto-currency economy much faster towards the Knowledge Age and kill the Industrial Age even faster thus imploding their tax base and power structure. They will have to move to 666 embedded tracking in the body, that is the only hope for the power vacuum of democracy to continue to be funded as the physical economy gives way to the virtual economy of Knowledge production.

Because we know taxes must go up egregiously over the next decade or two, to pay for the bankrupt socialism which has promised everything to everyone, especially those who are or will soon retire. So unless you are a fascist oligarchy corporation with a FATCA exemption (ding dong Europeans you are not exempted as you will eventually find out as your EU overloads in full cooperation with the Russian Oligarchy take control in the coming false flag war with Russia), then you have no choice but to move underground with crypto-currency. These elite bastards have painted themselves into a corner. We've got them by the throat if we implement.

It is analogous to how OPEC cartels were self-defeating because the more they raised the oil price, the more the world moved to newer, more efficient vehicles.

Try to explain to the police that you did not want to intrude on their privacy by giving them a receipt...

As for the tax people, they do not care where you got that money from, only that you did not pay taxes on it.

It makes no difference which alphabet soup agency or propaganda slogan (e.g. T for terrorism, HT for human trafficking) our fascist oligarchy overloads use, bottom line is they want to trace every thing fully so there is no leakage where you can find ways to avoid their coming taxation wealth confiscation, capital controls. The goal is only they remain standing and all your wealth ends up confiscated into the heaping pile of socialism failure which they control.

As George Bush said, "you are either with us, or against us". So either line up in your milking stall, or prepare to be destroyed. As one Treasury official said, "we will burn the fingers of goldbugs up to their armpits".

Hey listen to a noone like me would a TL;DR be alright to ask in your posts? I feel rude just skipping but if I do read, I get lost in the ramblings. This is leaving me a bit perplexed but none the wiser, after one of these posts of yours. And sometimes you fill almost an entire page of posts, sometimes someone actually quotes you again, and I like to have atleast gotten the gist of what I'm following firsthand. Thanks.

GL with the infection for which you require medicine from Amazon, too.

[Globb0]

This post by gmaxwell ...

Wow. Such a good post. I hadn't seen it before either. Thanks for linking that. This one is definitely a classic and will be brought up again and again.

Yeah do you want your customer seeing how much you pay and maybe also who your supplier is

[AnonyMint]

Did anyone tell about the MultiGateWay of Nxt ?



http://bitcoinist.net/multigateway-new-decentralized-exchange/
http://multigateway.com/
http://multigateway.com/user-guide/installing-the-software/
https://nxtforum.org/multigateway-jl777/
https://nxtforum.org/umgwc/
https://nxtforum.org/umgwc/umgw-ui-release-v1-3e/

It's working, I am using it.
Basically you can trade Nxt for Bitcoin or Litecoin, soon Darkcoin (I know fuck that coin) and more crypto soon.

It is a decentralized exchange that you use from the Nxt client.
All transactions are based on the Nxt blockchain. No cheat, no theft, no scam, ...

Isn't it what cryptocurrencies always needed ?

That decentralised exchange appears to use three servers to store coins.

In other words, it's not decentralised.

I don't get it.

The Nxt exchange works on the blockchain and is decentralised.

However the gateway part isn't decentralised, because the bitcoin keys are held by someone. The actual sending of bitcoins is not handled automatically.

You are right, I think people are getting confused between the gateway and decentralized exchange where they are issued.

Correct me if I am wrong.

I believe you are correct.

When you generate a deposit address, the key is cut in 3 parts and stored on 3 different servers. This avoid having keys stored on the Nxt client that could potentially get stolen.

Since then, all transfers and trades happen on the Nxt Blockchain so everything is decentralized except the address generation.

It appears to me without digging in too deep that the BTC keys are held on servers because (among other reasons, e.g. see DoS issue below) the person who cashed BTC for some asset on the NXT asset exchange, may not be the same person to cash out in BTC.

Thus it is not decentralized because the owners of the external assets in the exchange are not the owners of the proxies for them on the NXT blockchain, i.e. it appears the private keys are held on servers.

That is not a decentralized exchange, because those three servers can be hacked, raided, served a national security letter, etc..

So no, James (jl777) did not solve the decentralized exchange.

A truly decentralized exchange looks like this design:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Atomic_cross-chain_trading
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=91843.20

However that design doesn't include protection against denial-of-service, i.e. where either party repeatedly (perhaps through numerous identities) initiates the transaction but does not complete it, thus causing the other party to enter an endless loop of delay. One way to throttle DoS in the case would be to charge a transaction fee, except who do you pay the transaction fee to if it is decentralized? You'd prefer the transaction fee goes to the ether but who can be trusted to generate an address and throwaway the private key? An altcoin could include a transaction type for spending to the ether, but I don't think Bitcoin has one or can nLockTime be set to infinity? and in Bitcoin set nLockTime to 0 which means forever. Much better if transaction fees to the ether could be eliminated or minimized, because in fact tx fee can't be a solution because the tx fee can be DoS'ed also, i.e. the counterparty may not reciprocate to pay a tx fee and there is no centralized party to refund the tx fee that only one party paid.

It is analogous to the CoinJoin (DarkCoin) two-step dilemma.


Aren't we acting like little boys again, building our emblems for our imaginary army, ranks, sergeants, etc... We are so focused on the appearances and remiss on analysis of the functionality.



DarkCoin with Indigo blue jeans and StarTrek Enterprise targets hippies and science fiction.

BitcoinDark looks like the Shelby Mustang (thanks for the tribute to my name). Google's first home page for comparison.



The meaning of this is that you aren't focused on scaling. You are playing games.

[aminorex]

The meaning of this is that you aren't focused on scaling. You are playing games.

...says the man whose every post is a power-gaming move;)

[luigi1111]

However that design doesn't include protection against denial-of-service, i.e. where either party repeatedly (perhaps through numerous identities) initiates the transaction but does not complete it, thus causing the other party to enter an endless loop of delay. One way to throttle DoS in the case would be to charge a transaction fee, except who do you pay the transaction fee to if it is decentralized? You'd prefer the transaction fee goes to the ether but who can be trusted to generate an address and throwaway the private key? An altcoin could include a transaction type for spending to the ether, but I don't think Bitcoin has one or can nLockTime be set to infinity? Much better if transaction fees to the ether could be eliminated or minimized.

What about this? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=144158.0

[AnonyMint]

According to game theory, if I am concerned about the future, I would prefer to see serious work that can scale and a focus on functionality over silly playing.

The meaning of this is that you aren't focused on scaling. You are playing games.

...says the man whose every post is a power-gaming theoretic move;)

play
plā/
verb
gerund or present participle: playing

    1.
    engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose.
    "the children were playing outside"
    synonyms:   amuse oneself, entertain oneself, enjoy oneself, have fun;

[Triffin]

Anonymint ..

We are so focused on the appearances and remiss on analysis of the functionality.

So, in your opinion, do any of the current crop of anonymous coins offer a 'good enough' solution
or is it still a 'work in progress' ??

Triff ..

[Anotheranonlol]

It appears to me without digging in too deep that the BTC keys are held on servers because (among other reasons, e.g. see DoS issue below) the person who cashed BTC for some asset on the NXT asset exchange, may not be the same person to cash out in BTC.

Thus it is not decentralized because the owners of the external assets in the exchange are not the owners of the proxies for them on the NXT blockchain, i.e. it appears the private keys are held on servers.

That is not a decentralized exchange, because those three servers can be hacked, raided, served a national security letter, etc..

So no, James (jl777) did not solve the decentralized exchange.

A truly decentralized exchange looks like this design:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Atomic_cross-chain_trading
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=91843.20

However that design doesn't include protection against denial-of-service, i.e. where either party repeatedly (perhaps through numerous identities) initiates the transaction but does not complete it, thus causing the other party to enter an endless loop of delay. One way to throttle DoS in the case would be to charge a transaction fee, except who do you pay the transaction fee to if it is decentralized? You'd prefer the transaction fee goes to the ether but who can be trusted to generate an address and throwaway the private key? An altcoin could include a transaction type for spending to the ether, but I don't think Bitcoin has one or can nLockTime be set to infinity? and in Bitcoin set nLockTime to 0 which means forever. Much better if transaction fees to the ether could be eliminated or minimized, because in fact tx fee can't be a solution because the tx fee can be DoS'ed also, i.e. the counterparty may not reciprocate to pay a tx fee and there is no centralized party to refund the tx fee that only one party paid.

There is a similar thing to the NXT gateway for CounterParty -- http://www.vennd.io/


Obviously all native counterparty assets can be escrowed by the protocol automatically, atomicity is guaranteed but for trades against native counterparty assets and btc you have the trolling or DoS problems you speak of. They have come up with a few solutions but none have been ideal, What they are looking at doing now is using collaterised orders, where the seller must hold a small amount of a reserve token. The protocol will take a floating amount of that token on and award that to the buyer if they default on their BTCpay (proportionally based on amount of filled order) .

I think MSC sends fixed amount to their genesis address on every trade. You can pay tx fee to miners, but then pool-ops and such are in a advantaged position.It doesn't seem so hard to send to an obviously unspendable address though, unless I'm getting something wrong.

[AnonyMint]

Ah I said I wasn't reentering the thread, the slippery slope of the best intentions of mice and men... (I still want to depart for a while)

So, in your opinion, do any of the current crop of anonymous coins offer a 'good enough' solution
or is it still a 'work in progress' ??

I hope this is fair, objective, impartial...

(disclosure: can't be 100% sure because I could possibly be a competitor to all of these, yet due to the ability to borrow ideas from open source I might also be a contributor)

Work in progress, maybe 'good enough' near-term in Cryptonote's (Monero, BlueBoolberry, etc) case for solving one aspect of anonymity. For example, one-time ring signatures is progress and is useable (thus has market value NOW) but is a step backwards on scaling (which may present a problem with centralization of mining in the not near-term FUTURE), at least in its current form. But Bitcoin mining is already centralized, so it is not a future we don't already have. DarkCoin (CoinJoin) is progress because although the masternodes can be Sybil attacked (see smooth's comments upthread for clear logic on this likelihood), you might assume you have a better chance with a plurality of master nodes that they are not all compromised than if you wanted to mix your coins with the uncertainty of potential Sybil attacks on Bitcoin employing Tor or I2P with a just a few master mixers such as bitcoinfog. DarkCoin appears to also add a scaling problem that didn't exist before on Bitcoin because there is either the simultaneity dilemma or the blockchain bloat of their premixing.

The bullet list comparison I provided is upthread.

Whereas, Cryptonite solves a FUTURE problem with blockchain bloat that no one needs NOW and which is only a constant factor improvement over the potential to prune Bitcoin (which maybe can't be done most efficiently without a fork), unless you can argue that the current blockchain size is the reason Bitcoin is centralized with one or two pools controlling > 50% of the hashrate, which doesn't appear to be the main reason.

I believe the above statements are an accurate summary of the upthread discussion (at least from my perspective). Hope that helps.

...but for trades against native counterparty assets and btc you have the trolling or DoS problems you speak of. They have come up with a few solutions but none have been ideal, What they are looking at doing now is using collaterised orders, where the seller must hold a small amount of a reserve token. The protocol will take a floating amount of that token on and award that to the buyer if they default on their BTCpay (proportionally based on amount of filled order) .

I think MSC sends fixed amount to their genesis address on every trade. You can pay tx fee to miners, but then pool-ops and such are in a advantaged position.It doesn't seem so hard to send to an obviously unspendable address though, unless I'm getting something wrong.

My comment is necessarily highly technical. If anyone thinks they can reword so laymen can more easily understand, please do.

Afaics, the insoluble problem with collateral held in escrow is that a decentralized protocol can't hold a private key, because everyone could see it. Thus for any funds to be held in escrow, there must be a centralized controller, i.e. a server.

Agreed as I wrote previously, tx fees can be sent to the ether, but the insoluble problem remains that the tx fees can also be DoS'ed or trolled because it is a two (or multiple) step process for each party to the exchange to commit their tx fees.

In summary in the analogous abstract with trading cross-chain assets there is an inverted 'race condition' on who pays last and the 'semaphore' or 'mutex' needed to resolve with infinitesimal delay is centralized control. Decentralized atomicity is achieved only with a non-zero delay, which thus opens to DoS attack.

[bitdig]

Can anyone explain me in simple english what the hell is BTCD? is it somehow connected to BTC or just pump/dump altcoin?

[smooth]

Can anyone explain me in simple english what the hell is BTCD?

It is altcoin. Not related to Bitcoin except using the name in an arguably deceptive way. That alone should probably tell you something.

[AnonyMint]

It is altcoin.

Hehe now I know you are probably immersed in coding, because you dropped the 'an' as I often drop words that I read in my head by forget to type, because I am distracted.

BTCD is Bitcoin Dark. I suspect (it, hehe) is CoinJoin. Haven't bothered to look closely.

[sonoIO]

AnonyMint, can you please comment on Open Transactions (OT) http://opentransactions.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page if you are familiar with it, in the context of decentralized exchange? In OT every asset has its unique ID and trade pair is obtained by XORing their pair of IDs, if i remember correctly. OT server then uses bitmessage to "publish" any order, see e.g. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=212490.360

Couple more links about it:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1vqrt9/open_transactions_is_coming_of_age/
http://opentransactions.org/forum/index.php?topic=3759.0

OT uses servers, the term should be changed probably as it implies something centralized. Hypothetically, if every node of some Coin network runs OT "server" (with pairs including that Coin) there is nothing centralized in that.

EDIT: intro on OT & BM: http://www.open-transactions.com/2013/06/interview-open-transactions-bitmessage.html

[Este Nuno]

https://gist.github.com/gavinandresen/e20c3b5a1d4b97f79ac2

Thoughts?

[Conurtrol]

It is altcoin.

Hehe now I know you are probably immersed in coding, because you dropped the 'an' as I often drop words that I read in my head by forget to type, because I am distracted.

BTCD is Bitcoin Dark. I suspect (it, hehe) is CoinJoin. Haven't bothered to look closely.

Not coinjoin: https://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/0G9JRRFF/jl777-Teleport-DarkPaper.doc_links